Vegeta stood, stoically waiting for the ruckus to quiet into a light din. He waited again for it to slowly meander into an expectant silence. Bulma caught his eye from across the table, lips pulling into an exuberant smile. She grabbed her drink and knocked her knife against it, and the party looked at her. Eventually, all thirty or so pairs of eyes fell on Vegeta, standing at the head of the table.
"Trunks," He began, flourishing his squat glass of amber liquor. The catering staff was almost done filling champagne flutes, and his son, startled, looked at him with an uncertain expression as the party tentatively grasped the stems of their glasses. The idea of Vegeta making a toast felt uncomfortable, but politeness urged them to listen and pretend as if it weren't out of the ordinary.
Trunks raised his eyebrows and tried to appear nonchallant though his cheeks were touched with pink. This was unfamiliar territory for them both. His father rarely acknowledged him in such a tone in private, let alone in front of others, and especially not in front of the particular group gathered today.
"Twenty years ago I could not fathom standing here, actually enjoying myself in this company." He said, gesturing with his chin to the guests around him, his eyes sweeping over Bulma, their toddler squirming her lap, overYamcha, and Roshi, Piccolo, tall and brooding behind them though somewhat normal looking civilian clothing. Over Krillin and Eighteen, then ChiChi and her sons, and finally Kakarot, who grinned up at him stupidly as he nudged a stack of finished plates forward to make room on the table for his elbows. Vegeta suppressed the urge to snort. God, I should have just taken the boy aside… No, no… he is a prince. He deserves his father's public veneration. Even if only in front of these losers.
He allowed a beat of silence as the party began to settle into the idea of him speaking, as they began to follow the rhythm of his words with equal parts skepticism and amusement.
"In fact, I suspect none of you expected to one day enjoy my company either, especially Kakarot, Krillin, Gohan and Bulma, who I personally terrorized on Namek." Without saying it, he was acknowledging that, yes, this was weird. He, who had once been a catalyst for chaos in their lives, tonight dining with them, standing up and toasting an occasion with them. "Gohan, a part of me is still furious I believed you when you said that it was a clock. None of this would have transpired if I hadn't fallen for it, and I might have gotten my wish. But ... I'm grateful for it now. Besides, you'll never forget that sucker punch I dealt you. I consider it even." Vegeta's teeth shown in a wolfish smile and Gohan did laugh, remembering murderous tension that had once repelled them, and how strange, even comical, it seemed that now that had dissipated and their daughters would grow up playing pretend together.
"And Krillin. You were the first Earthling to earn my grudging respect when you stood your ground against the Ginyu force..." Krillin nodded at him appreciatively, unable to stop the pride that suddenly and forcefully bloomed in his chest. He had never gotten the idea the former prince had given him much thought at all. "Even if you almost pissed yourself, that day you had more balls than most people in Frieza's army, and for that I consider you a true warrior."
"And of course, there's you." Vegeta said, smirking at his wife across the lengthy table. "Bulma, if it weren't for your borderline insanity and ram-it-down-your-throat personality, none of us would be together today, let alone me and our children. I don't have words to convey how deeply indebted I am to you for putting up with me for two whole decades and forcing upon me things I never knew I needed or wanted. Most days I can't decide if you are a saint or truly certifiable." The table chuckled, and Bulma smiled broadly and blew him a kiss. Obnoxious. Embarrassing. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but couldn't stop the heat from rising to his cheeks.
"And Kakarot." Vegeta paused and looked off to the side as if in thought. "Well, I don't regret anything."
Goku laughed. "Me neither!"
"So somehow it's happened that we are all here, celebrating my son's birthday. Trunks, I've faced a lot of horrifying situations in my life, but eighteen years ago, when your mother presented you to me… that was perhaps the most terrifying moment of my life. I wasn't a good man then, not that I am today, but I was crueler at that time and I resented you. For a long time, I didn't understand why, but I know now it was because I felt I had been set up to fail you. There was so much I was supposed to be able to give a son, heir to my family's crown and the Saiyan empire. But by the time you came along there was nothing I could offer you, aside from a nearly-meaningless title. This knowledge ate at me. How could I live up to my namesake with nothing tangible to back it? Would you grow up and decide that I was a fake?"
"I was thinking of such a few nights ago and recalled something my father said to me when I was about your sister's age. He, like most Saiyan men, generally only had two emotions: indifference or rage, but the feelings in him then were complicated: there was fear, awe, despair... It was the last thing he said to me."
Vegeta tried not to feel the stares of guests boring expectant holes in him. He never spoke of his childhood; everyone knew why. He wanted Trunks to understand, but he didn't want prying eyes to catch a glimpse of any vulnerabilities he had fit tightly behind his mask of stoicism.
"Before … it's end, there was chaos on my planet. Civil war... insurrection against my father, against Frieza's organization. Frieza himself was there in the capital often, to quell the tension and to keep his assets from destruction. My father must have had an inkling of what was to come because when Frieza's men came to collect me, he spoke to me like it had all been lost already. He said, "Vegeta, I remember when you a disgusting, fragile little newborn. I refused to hold you, worried that that squishy weakness was contagious. And now look at us. Me, withered with stress and whipped into submission by that lizard. And you... you're younger, stronger and smarter than me. You have all the potential of a better leader. Jealousy dies in my heart when I remember that is how it should be. Children should always reach higher heights than their fathers."
Vegeta paused. "Today, you are a man by human standards. But you've been brighter, and taller …" He paused to let the table have their laugh. "And more likable than me for years. You are twenty times stronger than I was at your age, and probably at least about one hundred times stronger than Kakarot at eighteen-"
"Hey!" Goku complained at the jab.
"In the past, I know you have resented me, Trunks. I am harsh and critical of you because I see that as my duty as your father. But if you didn't know how proud I am of you, how acutely aware I am that my best qualities live in you, now you know." Vegeta, smirking, lifted his glass. "To Trunks, you are a son any Saiyan father would be proud to have, even with that ridiculous hair."
The rest followed echoing the boy's name and smiling lovingly. "To Trunks!" "Happy Birthday!"
Over the clinking of glasses, Buu, the childish creature, was clapping his gloved mitts and howling enthusiastically, "Yay, Trunks, Buu love Trunks. Buu make Trunks birthday cookies!" He declared, procuring a plate of vanilla confections shaped in human form. The entire table paused mid-drink in a moment of pure horror wondering just how the creature had come to have them. Surely, the thing was too simple to use an oven...
"They're just butter and sugar!" Hercule reassured them quickly, laughing in the boisterous, bumbling and noisy way of his realizing the party's momentary terror. Buu shook his head affirmatively, "No people inside! Just sugar, mmmmm!"
Goku and the children each snatched at the plate in greed and elation, causing a glass of water to fall into Videl's lap and shatter on the pavement. Gohan jumped up and fussed over her dotingly, while ChiChi's voice rose above the rising chatter to tell her husband to stop acting like such a child. In the background, Pan decided to push Maron, fully clothed, into the pool and Eighteen and Krillin both rushed to rescue their sobbing, dripping daughter. Bra was teasing the dog with pieces of her cookie, and Bulma was already on a third glass of champagne.
Crazy, the lot of them, Vegeta thought.
Purposely ignoring his wife's gaze, fearing she waggle her eyebrows and drunkenly say something embarrassingly suggestive like she had so many times before, Vegeta pinched the bridge of his nose and poured another glass of bourbon.
"Dad," Trunks had appeared at his side. When Vegeta turned, the boy he pulled him into a hug. "Thanks, dad."
"Yea, yea, you're welcome, that's enough." He said gruffly and disentangled himself. "And don't get too drunk because I'm dragging you to simulator for drills tomorrow morning. I don't want you turning out like Gohan." The prince snorted disdainfully and the bespectacled half-Saiyan, still worrying over Videl. When Vegeta tried to sit again, he almost sat in directly on Kakarot's lap. Jumping, his lips curled as the words get the fuck out of my chair gurgled up from his throat and died before they touched his tongue. The filet of kobe beef was gone from his plate. Like a furious bull, Vegeta's breath steamed from his flaring nostrils.
Goku smiled mid-chew, and shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry, buddy. I figured you were done with it since it's dessert time and all."
Vegeta sputtered angrily, but before he could work his lips into an appropriate response, Trunks got a smug look that made him look too much like his father.
"I'll handle it." He said, and with a swift kick to the frame of the chair right between Goku's legs, sent the other Saiyan skidding, still seated, into the pool.
Vegeta let loose the most genuine laugh he'd had in years.